- After a lengthy production hiatus, Chicago veteran Boo Williams is back. And he's brimming with ideas. Neither side of his new release, Moving Rivers, has an individual element that could be extracted and recognised as particularly unique or clever. However, the way they interact―occasionally bumping one another aside, briefly pausing or otherwise deviating from the sequences they've been following―is magnificent.
In the title track track, it almost feels like there are too many ideas trying to bust out. Initially, a caramel-smooth bassline is the focus, but it's soon joined by strident percussion, scurrying arps, blurry vibraphone and incandescent bursts of synth. Alone, these pieces would probably sound simple, but together…well, you get the idea. It's good.
"Peaking Point" is a particularly buoyant piece of piano house, bass providing most of the lift. Higher keys are hit periodically, acting as little bumps along an otherwise slick and fast road. The backdrop is less conventional, filled out by the harmonies of a children's choir. There's nothing overtly retro-sounding here. But is that a surprise? The man born Willie Griffin was there soon after house kicked off; he's probably less interested in repeating history than some of the younger retro-fetishists are. Moving Rivers has better things to do, such as show where else the genre might be able to go.
Tracklist A Moving Rivers
B Peaking Point